Posts by shrodi

Sirius XM flaw unlocks so-called smart cars thanks to code flaw

Not the most secure company from my own experience...

"We take the security of our customers' accounts seriously..."

As a Sirius XM radio customer, I had to call them around 8 years ago to transfer my service to a new car. I was completely flabergasted when the agent asked me, like it was nothing: "Are you still happy wirh [censored] for your password?" I am not kidding: not only were they saving their customers passwords in plaintext, but customer service agents could go and read them all they want! I immediately expressed my outrage to the agent, who became very defensive and argued that only authorized personel were allowed to access the passwords; yeah, right, and all agents on Earth are always honest, and no risk at all for the data to get stolen...

I don't know if they changed their way of storing passwords, but no suprises to me here if they conceived a system that is so eay to hack.

Mozilla Thunderturkey and its malcontents

I don't worship 3.x, but it's the Swiss army knife I need

It was a shock for me as well when I switched from TB2 to TB3: I was quite taken aback by the "augmented" features, and not very cool about those new default settings such as IMAP synchronization (I hurried to disable this as soon as I realized what was going on). I use only IMAP e-mail (multiple accounts), but I also need PGP/GPG encryption & signature, plus LDAP support for my contacts, and Linux compatibility. On the top of this, there are quite a few TB extensions I like and use, even though they're not essential. Given what I need, the only viable alternative I know of is Evolution, but I tried it some time and had problems whith it, and it doesn't have cool extensions I can find for Thunderbird. Even though TB2 was heaven for me, TB3 works at least well enough for me so I can stick to it for now, but I do hope they make dramatic improvements for the next versions!

Columbia disaster 'not survivable', NASA concludes

30 seconds story...?

``[...] the report reveals the crew were killed not by fire but rather by a "depressurization event" which "occurred so rapidly that the crew members were incapacitated within seconds"``

How many seconds exactly? At least 30, apparently, which could surely feel like an eternity for the ones involved... : http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/ask_astro/answers/970603.html

French court says non to pre-loaded Windows on Acer laptop

France law

I've read many comments, and something that didn't seem to come up is the fact that in France there is a law prohibiting "la vente liée" ("bound sale"), and that it is on the basis of this law that the lawsuit was won (if you read French, you can have more details on this story here: http://www.zdnet.fr/actualites/informatique/0,39040745,39373559,00.htm). A "bound sale" is when you are forced to buy something you don't want in order to get something else you want. In this case (and it is not the first one in France: it's just the more severe to date), the judge stated that forcing people to pay for some software in order for them to get the computer they want was illegal.

I understand the point that this guy could have bought an OS-less computer in the first place and never bother going to court, but the real legal issue here (IANAL, but studying to be one) is that, from the point of view of the France law, he has a right to buy a specific computer (say, an Acer computer, because he likes the hardware specs or the aftersale service or any reason he wants) and not be forced to pay for anything else. Many courts in France have concluded that software is not an integral part of a computer, like would be, say, wheels for a car, and is more alike to, say, DVDs versus a DVD player (a DVD player manufacturer could not force you to buy some movies in order to buy their DVD player).

Some people want to fight for their rights, others prefer not bother, and it's one's choice.

Could you give up your desk phone?

Best move ever

Have not had a home desk phone since 2001, and I think it was one of the best moves in my life. In addition to not having to pay for two phones anymore, one of the things I like best about it is never being harassed anymore by survey and/or marketing calls! :)

What are the scientific reasons for having sex?

Sex makes you look younger, or...?

According to the article:

"Sex results in a more youthful appearance. According to a study by Dr David Weeks, a clinical neuropsychologist at the Royal Edinburgh Hospital in Scotland and co-author of Superyoung (1999), men and women who reported having sex an average of four times per week looked approximately 10 years younger than they really were."

I haven't read the cited study, but is it really having sex that makes you look younger or isn't it rather looking younger that will make the odds higher that you get more sex in the first place...?